We've all seen the disturbing images of the shanty towns that popped up all over America during the Great Depression. They were called Hoovervilles, because of the fact that President Hoover stood by and watched the Great Depression happen. Paul Krugman has written endlessly about how Hoover and his following of Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon's policies led to the deepening of the Great Depression.

President Hoover refused to take legislative action to deal with the crisis because he believed it would make people more reliant on the government. Instead he tried to encourage public-private partnerships, which failed miserably. Secretary Mellon had the highest tax rate reduced from 77 to 25 percent, reduced the estate tax, and cut government agency budgets to "improve efficiency in government." Do those policies remind you of a certain party's recommended solutions to the current economic crisis?

* Marc in CA's diary :: ::

As if that wasn't enough, Hoover started an international tariff war with the rest of the world by signing the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. It was these policies that led to what history now knows as Hoovervilles:

Well sadly those shanty towns, those Hoovervilles, have now become Bushvilles, thanks to the do-nothing policies of the Bush Administration and the continued elitist "let them eat dirt" policies of the Republican Party. These are the images of the new Bushvilles:

hese are from the new and growing tent city in Sacramento, one of America's new Bushvilles. This tent city has an estimated population of 1500 people and is growing at a rate of 50 people per week.

Seen above is Karen Hersh. She's a newly unemployed truck driver and now she's doing her best to keep her new home clean.

This is Tammy Day, with her husband, preparing their dinner over one of the Bushville's campfires. The unemployment rate in Sacramento reached a depressing 10.4% in January and the city has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country.

Here Ben Cardwell, a resident of this Bushville is helping carry supplies to the camp.

And despite the fact that their country and government has failed them, there's still clearly a faith and hope that America's greatest days are still ahead and they will soon see a better day:

The conservatives and Wall Street in general has been complaining for the last several weeks about the "trillions of dollars in wealth destruction" on Wall Street that they claim the current administration is responsible for. The complaints are ridiculous of course. That so-called "wealth" never existed in the first place. It was fake wealth and now they're coming to a crashing reality.

The problem is that the irresponsible actions of the wealthy has caused a destruction of wealth on a much more important and devastating scale. There are millions of American families who live paycheck to paycheck. They're a matter of a month or two away from losing everything they own.

Now we are seeing exactly that happening. Hard working families losing their jobs and being forced to create their new home by pitching a tent and building a campfire to stay warm.

These new shanty towns can appropriately be called America's Bushvilles. They are here because of the irresponsibility of the Party of George W. Bush, and their continued efforts today to repeat the disastrous policies of both Hoover and Bush.

They want to do nothing. They want the government to go on a spending freeze:

Quote:

The top Republican in the House is seizing on the latest spike in unemployment to call for a freeze on government spending and to urge President Barack Obama to veto a $410 billion spending bill.

...

He urged the president to work with House Republicans to impose a spending freeze until the end of this fiscal year.

Yup, that's right America. The depression we're now experiencing which has been exacerbated by the reduced spending of individuals and business...the Republican solution to that problem? SPENDING FREEZE!!! Yea that makes a ton of sense. Let's reduce the flow of money in the economy even more.

And those banks that nobody trusts anymore? What's the proposed Republican solution to that problem?[/url]

The United States should let some big troubled banks fail rather than commit more federal funds to prop them up, two key congressional Republicans said on Sunday.

Quote:

"Close them down, get them out of business. If they're dead, they ought to be buried," Shelby told ABC's "This Week" program. "We bury the small banks. We've got to bury some big ones and send a strong message to the market."

Quote:

Senator John McCain, who remains a Republican leader after losing the 2008 White House race to President Barack Obama, criticized the new administration's response to the banks.

"I don't think they made the hard decision and that is to let these banks fail," McCain told "Fox News Sunday."

Yup, that's right...they want to reassure the American public by increasing uncertainty about whether their bank will be the next one to go under. And not only that, but the Republican party wants to collectively dance on their graves after they've "buried" them.

Gotta love the logic of The Party of George W. Bush.[Update 1 12:24P]: I meant to complete this website several weeks ago when I read a heart breaking diary from someone who was expecting to lose their job soon and wasn't sure what how they'd support themselves and their families if that happened. So I'm going to start a not for profit website where we can post jobs and our resumes for free and maybe even collaborate to help each other find work if we find ourselves unemployed. I just have a placeholder up right now, but I expect to have something functional up by the end of the day and will be constantly improving it over the coming days. Its located at: progressivejobboard.com.

In the case of California, they've been going down that road for a long time, and rather than Bush or Obama, the weight is most heavily on their Governator and the legislature. The state is bankrupt, and a number of counties within the state are beginning to hold them accountable by threatening to withold tax revenues, and now the state legislature is thinking about trying to tax marajuana...good luck with that.

Quote:

That so-called "wealth" never existed in the first place. It was fake wealth and now they're coming to a crashing reality.

This, I can believe to an extent. We got here largely with people relying on all this credit not backed up by anything, and now Congress wants to keep this worthless credit flowing? No wonder even now the economy keeps going down, down, down...

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